Thursday, 16 November 2017

To Touch or Not to Touch

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I touched a man last week. A strange young man, no less. He’d asked a good question after a lecture. I delivered my compliment while laying my hand on a jacketed shoulder, after which I went into apology mode: “Sorry," I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, “but I can’t do it to you.”

My response? “Yes, you can.” When I’ve done a great job, definitely give me a pat on the shoulder. Or even a (not too hard) slap on the back.

And when mixed-gender teammates or committee members celebrate an unexpected victory, let them link arms in solidarity! What’s more natural? Go, team! Let them do a little cancan, too.

But, all you scumbags at a social event, don’t insinuate your arm around my waist or play kneesies under the table or stare pop-eyed at my chest when I’m trying to talk to you, although I usually minimize the latter by minimizing cleavage, the result of an amusing experiment I devised a few years ago. I baited the hook with a yumyum plunging neckline. Suddenly guys who’d ignored me before were buying me drinks. It was a hoot! It was also very boring.

Wolf whistles never frightened or flattered me, and it didn’t take me long to understand that the merest hint of a loutish ogle is nothing but diminishment. The so-called compliment that interrupts a job review, for example. What a beautiful smile you have! Such gorgeous blue eyes! Under that shower of sweet irrelevancies, I sensed immediately that I was no longer a hot prospect for a well paid professional position. I was bed bait, a one dimensional sex object. Did I call out the interviewer? Not then. But I would today.

The distance between leering and the look of love needs light years for measurement.

A hug is not a hug either. Take the exuberant bear hug of long lost friends. See the eyes lit up! Hear the exuberant cries! This embrace bears absolutely no relation to the repellent office power grab that lasts too long and has the woman wondering how on earth she’ll escape without creating a scene—or losing a job. The hot flab under the suit! The sandpaper jowls! The beard tickle. Ugh!

There’s an easy solution to the abusive hug scenario. Men, for the most part, shake hands in public. Let’s jettison the air kisses for professional women at business meetings. Ditto the all-encompassing arm wrap from male acquaintances encountered at a party. Trust to a warm firm handshake lit up by a delighted-to-see-or-meet-you smile.

Still, there are plenty of moments that demand physical closeness. When the need’s for comfort and a shoulder to cry on, who worries about male or female? And what kind of idiot rebuffs a gentle, consoling pat on the hand that comes from the “wrong” sex? All of us need generous doses of physical closeness, and anyone with a functioning brain knows the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching. So let’s not go overboard. Let’s not repel the intimacy we need in the course of insulating ourselves from predation.

Males especially need to face the fact that, for lo! these eons of impunity, they have pretended not to notice their colleagues’ abusive behavior. Defying the wolf pack may be tough on those who like being one of the boys, but it’s time for men to speak out. Hey, bro, that’s not the way to go!

As for those still addicted to grabbing pussy and pinching bottoms, the days when the hottie could be trusted to grin-and-bear-it are coming to an end. Expect to see hands slapped away. Expect audible protests. Expect targets to be increasingly immune to character assassination. Expect lost jobs and stained reputations. Not the lady’s.

I once got painfully pinched during a festival in Lahore, Pakistan. Almost automatically, I turned, protested in Urdu and punched the jerk, striking a blow not only for myself, but for all Western women in Pakistan: we were universally disrespected as “loose.” After that came a moment of terror. The other men in the crowd—how would they behave?

Like gentlemen, as it turned out. They apologized to me. They turned on my molester.

Would I have received the same sympathy from American men? More likely, I’d have been advised to suck it up. Or, worse, been told to take it as a compliment.

Meanwhile, according to Vice President Pence and others of his religious ilk, the solution to the problem of sexual harassment and abuse at work is to segregate men from women, whether to prevent women from being mauled and or—the real motive, I suspect—to protect men from “false” charges. That system might work for the beneficiaries of patriarchy, but it would cripple the ability of women to compete in a “man’s world.”

What’s to be done? For the time being, since too many males in our society have been raised to manhandle any female they can get their paws on, there’s safety in numbers. Public shaming. Public blaming. Above all, swelling the “me-too,” chorus. Bill Clinton toughed it out. Donald Trump became President. Roy Moore may or may not win his election, but he will never be sworn into the Senate. That’s progress.

Comments

To Touch or Not to Touch

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

I touched a man last week. A strange young man, no less. He’d asked a good question after a lecture. I delivered my compliment while laying my hand on a jacketed shoulder, after which I went into apology mode: “Sorry," I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, “but I can’t do it to you.”

My response? “Yes, you can.” When I’ve done a great job, definitely give me a pat on the shoulder. Or even a (not too hard) slap on the back.

And when mixed-gender teammates or committee members celebrate an unexpected victory, let them link arms in solidarity! What’s more natural? Go, team! Let them do a little cancan, too.

But, all you scumbags at a social event, don’t insinuate your arm around my waist or play kneesies under the table or stare pop-eyed at my chest when I’m trying to talk to you, although I usually minimize the latter by minimizing cleavage, the result of an amusing experiment I devised a few years ago. I baited the hook with a yumyum plunging neckline. Suddenly guys who’d ignored me before were buying me drinks. It was a hoot! It was also very boring.

Wolf whistles never frightened or flattered me, and it didn’t take me long to understand that the merest hint of a loutish ogle is nothing but diminishment. The so-called compliment that interrupts a job review, for example. What a beautiful smile you have! Such gorgeous blue eyes! Under that shower of sweet irrelevancies, I sensed immediately that I was no longer a hot prospect for a well paid professional position. I was bed bait, a one dimensional sex object. Did I call out the interviewer? Not then. But I would today.

The distance between leering and the look of love needs light years for measurement.

A hug is not a hug either. Take the exuberant bear hug of long lost friends. See the eyes lit up! Hear the exuberant cries! This embrace bears absolutely no relation to the repellent office power grab that lasts too long and has the woman wondering how on earth she’ll escape without creating a scene—or losing a job. The hot flab under the suit! The sandpaper jowls! The beard tickle. Ugh!

There’s an easy solution to the abusive hug scenario. Men, for the most part, shake hands in public. Let’s jettison the air kisses for professional women at business meetings. Ditto the all-encompassing arm wrap from male acquaintances encountered at a party. Trust to a warm firm handshake lit up by a delighted-to-see-or-meet-you smile.

Still, there are plenty of moments that demand physical closeness. When the need’s for comfort and a shoulder to cry on, who worries about male or female? And what kind of idiot rebuffs a gentle, consoling pat on the hand that comes from the “wrong” sex? All of us need generous doses of physical closeness, and anyone with a functioning brain knows the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching. So let’s not go overboard. Let’s not repel the intimacy we need in the course of insulating ourselves from predation.

Males especially need to face the fact that, for lo! these eons of impunity, they have pretended not to notice their colleagues’ abusive behavior. Defying the wolf pack may be tough on those who like being one of the boys, but it’s time for men to speak out. Hey, bro, that’s not the way to go!

As for those still addicted to grabbing pussy and pinching bottoms, the days when the hottie could be trusted to grin-and-bear-it are coming to an end. Expect to see hands slapped away. Expect audible protests. Expect targets to be increasingly immune to character assassination. Expect lost jobs and stained reputations. Not the lady’s.

I once got painfully pinched during a festival in Lahore, Pakistan. Almost automatically, I turned, protested in Urdu and punched the jerk, striking a blow not only for myself, but for all Western women in Pakistan: we were universally disrespected as “loose.” After that came a moment of terror. The other men in the crowd—how would they behave?

Like gentlemen, as it turned out. They apologized to me. They turned on my molester.

Would I have received the same sympathy from American men? More likely, I’d have been advised to suck it up. Or, worse, been told to take it as a compliment.

Meanwhile, according to Vice President Pence and others of his religious ilk, the solution to the problem of sexual harassment and abuse at work is to segregate men from women, whether to prevent women from being mauled and or—the real motive, I suspect—to protect men from “false” charges. That system might work for the beneficiaries of patriarchy, but it would cripple the ability of women to compete in a “man’s world.”

What’s to be done? For the time being, since too many males in our society have been raised to manhandle any female they can get their paws on, there’s safety in numbers. Public shaming. Public blaming. Above all, swelling the “me-too,” chorus. Bill Clinton toughed it out. Donald Trump became President. Roy Moore may or may not win his election, but he will never be sworn into the Senate. That’s progress.